In response to the asking and requiring of stakeholders to be more environmentally responsible, firms must commit to green corporate social responsibility (CSR). Firms being green and responsible always can acquire intangible resources that are important for firm innovation. Given the scarcity of existing research addressing relevant issues in depth, this paper expands our understanding of green CSR by revealing its antecedent effects on firm innovation performance. We also include public visibility and firm transparency as contingency factors to explore the relationship between green CSR and firm innovation performance. Using data collected from publicly listed firms in China, we find that greater innovation performance is associated with an increase in firm green CSR, and the positive relationship between green CSR and innovation performance is moderated by public visibility and firm transparency. Based on the results, theoretical contributions and practical implications are outlined.

The twenty-first century has seen an increase in stakeholders, highlighting the need to discuss the role of corporate social responsibility in technological innovation. The objective of the current research is to examine the role that corporate social responsibility in technological innovation plays in enhancing the sustainable competitive performance of firms. The idea that digital transformation mediates the relationship between corporate social responsibility in technological innovation and sustainable competitive performance is proposed in this study. Additionally, the mastery climate may act as a boundary condition that strengthens the positive relationship between CSR and digital transformation. The data were collected in Chinese firms through a questionnaire. The results supported the mediation and moderation hypotheses, confirming that digital transformation mediates the relationship between corporate social responsibility in technological innovation and sustainable competitive performance. The mastery climate moderates the relationship between corporate social responsibility in technological innovation and digital transformation. The results have implications for theory and practice. Limitations and future research directions are also discussed.

Purpose: This study aims to offer insights regarding the impact of emotional conflict on innovation behavior. This study also explores the boundary conditions by examining the moderating effects of leader-member exchange (LMX) and team-member exchange (TMX) on the relationship between emotional conflict and innovation behavior.Design/methodology/approach: This study used a questionnaire survey to collect data in China. Hypotheses were tested using hierarchical regression analysis. To test for inverted U-shaped relationship between emotional conflict and innovation behavior, the authors computed the squared term for emotional conflict. To investigate moderating roles of LMX and TMX, the authors carried out an interaction term between the main effect variables (emotional conflict and emotional conflict²) and the moderating variables (LMX and TMX).Findings: The empirical findings indicated that emotional conflict had an inverted U-shaped relationship with innovation behavior. Furthermore, LMX and TMX moderated the inverted U-shaped relationship between the emotional conflict and innovation behavior in such a way that the inverted U-shaped relationship was flatter in high-quality LMX and TMX than in low-quality LMX and TMX. That is to say, LMX and TMX may dampen the positive effects of lower levels of emotional conflict on innovation behavior; yet, it may also weaken the negative effects of higher levels of emotional conflict on innovation behavior.Research limitations/implications: This research can be extended in several ways. First, future research can investigate the impact mechanism of emotional conflict on innovation behavior. Second, future research can analyze other types of moderators at different levels. The last but not the least, future research can test the results using heterogeneous samples. Despite these potential limitations, this study provides an elaborate understanding of the conflict–creativity relationship by outlining the inverted U-shaped relationship between emotional conflict and innovation behavior under the LMX and TMX contexts, which can make important contributions to the conflict management literature.Practical implications: The findings of this study offer some guidance on how to stimulate innovation behavior through emotional conflict. It suggests that managers should maintain the emotional conflict at the moderate level. Furthermore, managers can strengthen the LMX and TMX to avoid the negative effects of high levels of emotional conflict, and several practices are provided as well.Originality/value: This study develops an exhaustive understanding of the conflict–creativity relationship by figuring the curvilinear relationship between emotional conflict and innovation behavior, which is the response to the call of Posthuma to focus on the outcomes of conflict management. The findings further provide an empirical evidence of the conceptual argument that the consequences of conflict depend on the situational context by pointing out the important contingency factors of LMX and TMX.

Despite the growing importance of management practices, few studies have empirically examined the influence of technology management on product innovation, especially in the presence of technological capability. This paper explores how technology management relates to product innovation through the contingency role of technological capability. The results of correspondence analysis to test the proposed hypotheses showed that the technology management practices that are closely associated with product innovation performance are not identical in different technological capability stages. In the low technological capability stage, information management, equipment management and fund management have greater correlations with product innovation performance; in the medium technological capability stage, human resource management, organization management, quality management and standardized management have greater correlations with product innovation performance; in the high technological capability stage, cultural management, achievement management, and risk management have greater correlations with product innovation performance. The research results theoretically deepen the understanding of how technology management exerts its impact and provide theoretical guidance for the improvement of product innovation performance for firms in different technological capability stages.

Purpose: This study examines the mediating roles of the three dimensions of business intelligence (sensing capability, transforming capability and driving capability) in the relationship between the three dimensions of big data analytics capability (big data analytics management, technology and talent capabilities), and radical innovation among Chinese manufacturing enterprises.Design/methodology/approach: A theoretical framework was developed using the resource-based view. The hypothesis was tested using empirical survey data from 326 Chinese manufacturing enterprises.Findings: Empirical results show that, in the Chinese manufacturing context, business intelligence sensing capability, business intelligence transforming capability and business intelligence driving capability positively mediate the impact of big data analytics capability on radical innovation.Practical implications: The results offer managerial guidance for leaders to properly use big data analytics capability, business intelligence and radical innovation as well as offering theoretical insight for future research in the manufacturing industry’s radical innovation.Originality/value: This is among the first studies to examine three dimensions of big data analytics capability on the manufacturing industry’s radical innovation by considering the mediating role of three dimensions of business intelligence.

Technology management capability (TMC) and new product development (NPD) are important for China’s service-oriented manufacturers to achieve competitive advantage. In this study, TMC is conceptualized as comprising of four sub-level capabilities: searching, selecting, implementation and learning capabilities. Drawing from the theory of social capital, we hypothesize that social capital plays a role in the relationship between TMC and NPD performance. Our findings indicate that NPD performance and social capital are influenced by all the four sub-capabilities of TMC but the effect of each capability of TMC varies. Selecting capability is more significantly and positively related with NPD performance, while learning capability exerts the most significant positive effect on social capital. Moreover, our empirical findings indicate the partial mediating role of social capital in the process of TMC influencing NPD performance. This study makes a particular contribution to the literature by providing a more complete understanding of how social capital plays a role in the relationship between TMC and NPD performance. In terms of managerial implications, our results indicate that improving TMC is essential in enhancing a service-oriented manufacturing firm’s NPD performance. Managers should also pay particular attention to nurturing social capital as a pathway to realize the true value of TMC.